What those orange, blue, and green wires inside an Ethernet cable actually do

I started crimping my own Ethernet cables when I moved and tackled my basement networking project. Each CAT6 Ethernet cord contains eight colored wires inside—and they’re not decorative. During my first attempts, I wired several connectors completely backwards. My cable tester caught every mistake, which made me interested in learning what each wire actually does and why the order is so important. Get those twisted copper pairs wrong, and you might end up with no network connection, or your speeds will crawl compared to what you should be getting.